of Malena, was born at Rossanum. He was a Greek of Calabria. He married and had a child, then, both wife and child dying early, he went to be a monk. He entered the monastery of St Nazarios, near Palmi in Calabria, and at his profession took the name Neilos,[1] in memory of St Neilos of Sinai, who had also become a monk after the death of his wife.[2] He then moved to several monasteries, and became Hegumenos of St Adrian near San Demetrio Corone. But at that time the Saracens from Sicily were devastating Calabria; so at last, about 981, Neilos with his monks, fleeing from them, went north to the Campagna. They came first to the great Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino. The Abbot of Monte Cassino gave them a dependent house, Vallelucio, then the Greek monks moved again to Serperi, near Gaeta. Then Neilos went to Rome.
There had just been a revolution at Rome and an Antipope. The family of Crescentius had driven out the lawful Pope, Gregory V (996-999), and had set up a Calabrian, John Philagathos (Bishop of Piacenza), as Antipope, with the title John XVI. The Emperor Otto III (993-1002), coming to Rome in 998, had deposed Philagathos and put him in prison.
It was to beg for the life of his countryman that Neilos first came to Rome. He was received with great honour by Otto and Gregory. But, in spite of his efforts, Philagathos was murdered by the people (998). Then Neilos went back to Serperi. He was back in Rome four years later, and then set out for another Greek monastery, St Agatha, south of Tusculum. He was now a very old man. On his way he fell sick on the slopes of the Alban hills. Lying sick here at the place where Cicero had once had a villa and had written his "Quæstiones tusculana," Neilos had a vision, from which he learned that here at last his wandering monks were to find rest. He obtained a grant of the land from the Count of Tusculum, sent for his monks from Serperi, told them that they were to build a monastery here, and died on September 26, 1004.[3] He was
- ↑ Nilus, Nilo. It seems unreasonable to call a tenth-century Greek by a modern Italian name; nor, since he was a Greek, does there seem any reason to call him by a Latin name, when writing English.
- ↑ St Neilos of Sinai († 430) a follower of St John Chrysostom, monk at Sinai and writer (his works, many of which, however, are spurious, are in P.G., lxxix) is Neilos the Elder. Our Neilos, of Rossanum, is the Younger (Νεῖλος ὁ Νεώτερος).
- ↑ I have given some account of the life of St Neilos the Younger and of Grottaferrata in "Orthodox Eastern Church," pp. 168-170.
